For Homeless, A Way Station Of Hope

June 12, 1986|By Moira Bailey of The Sentinel Staff

The people with nowhere to go lined up in the church walkway where they used to sleep. Dwarfed by the white pillars of the First United Methodist Church, about 100 of Orlando's homeless stared through a brief, summer-fierce downpour. To the west they could see a break in the clouds and a sunset over Interstate 4. They waited, as they had for the previous seven nights, to go inside.

Bill from New Jersey sat about halfway down the line Sunday night, his back to a wall, his green backpack propped against his knees. He had a wide face and was clean-shaven, with straight black hair parted on the side. His attire gave him the look of someone who got lost en route to a campground a long time ago: a checked flannel shirt, a light blue cotton porkpie hat, a pair of tan work boots.

Except for one night, Bill had slept at United Methodist ever since the church opened its fellowship hall June 1 for a 9-p.m.-to-6-a.m. leave from the streets. For the 80 people that the hall could hold, there would be a sandwich dinner, a smoke break, a few hours to stretch out on the floor of an air- conditioned room, and some doughnuts and coffee in the morning.

Those who spent the night would get tickets for another. The yellow stubs would not be honored if their holders didn't return the next day by 9:15 p.m. or so. After a year of allowing homeless people to sleep in its courtyard and stairwells, First United Methodist became the first Orange County church to start a free nightly shelter. It is working to form a coalition of churches and community agencies to start similar programs.

Bill, who asked that his last name not be used, will be 39 at the end of the month. He said the shelter is the only way station he can afford on his wages from labor-pool work; he can't come up with the $6.50 per night charged by the Salvation Army or the Orlando Rescue Mission.

The same was true for many of his partners in line -- all but a handful were men -- who said they were either working or trying to find a job. Others had clearly been on the street so long that the memory of work, or the desire to find it, had faded like the clothes they wore night and day.

''There's a lot of people who are real and hurting,'' said Bill, ''and a lot who just play games.''

They are a group misunderstood by a public that thinks of them as lazy but would never do their dirty work, Bill said. ''I'm not a bum,'' he said. ''I clean toilets. I push garbage.''

Bill came to Orlando for a couple of weeks to rendezvous with his sister. So far, the money he has earned has paid for little besides food.

''If it wasn't for these people putting up hotels . . . the hotels wouldn't be here to make the money,'' said Bill, who gestured down the line. Bill doesn't think the city wants to acknowledge the problem of homelessness. He and several others who spent the night Sunday pointed to a sign tacked outside announcing a June 17 city council hearing on a permit allowing the church continued use of the fellowship hall as a shelter. Church leaders have said they are not worried about obtaining a permit. The shelter occupants were.

Bill doesn't think Orlandoans want people like him to stay very long. He said their attitude is ''it's okay to do these dirty jobs, but get out of my sight once they're done.'' When he recently tried to enter a downtown coffee shop, he was told he'd have to leave his backpack outside.

Like Bill from New Jersey, Bill Pollock didn't plan to stay in the shelter very long. The 23-year-old Washington state native wore shorts and knee socks and carried a shopping bag from a sporting-goods store. Pollock sported a grown-out crew cut, a reminder that his duty in the armed services was clipped short last month. He is nervous about living on the street.

Pollock said he moved from a motel to a downtown bus station before coming to the shelter. He spends afternoons cooling off in the Orlando Public Library and has lined up several job interviews. ''I feel that God is watching over me,'' he said, flashing an easy, ingenuous grin.

A 29-year-old Jacksonville man only a few months out of prison sat with his wife on a striped blanket. The only couple in the hall, they had lost their jobs at a Kissimmee motel. They were earning money giving plasma.

Elsewhere in the group, three friends plotted their move to a motel and new jobs in telephone solicitation. Another person, whom some shelter regulars called ''The Trashman,'' moved separately from the group. He had volunteered to sweep the floor the first morning the shelter was open and continued a daily cleanup while vowing to straighten things out in his own life as well.

Starting Monday morning, Jim, 22, began work as a dishwasher. He has a shot at working at the salad bar and possibly at the grill. Meanwhile, he calls his mother every week from a pay phone and doesn't describe his circumstances. When he gets a place of his own, Jim will invite her down from Vermont. But she doesn't like the heat.